


Ramblin' Woman

by FallingStories



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Female Castiel, Female Dean Winchester, Female Sam Winchester, Fluff and Angst, Genderbending, Mutual Pining, Season/Series 08, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Well for the given value of female, technically it is female Jimmy Novak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6750724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingStories/pseuds/FallingStories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Castiel takes off with the angel tablet, Sam and Deanna find a new hunt: civilians and papers reporting strange lights, disappearances, and other odd phenomena all centered around a small town in Indiana. What they find there is unlike anything they've ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ramblin' Woman

Sam’s hair stuck to her forehead as the sweltering heat parched the air inside the car. “Get a frigging A/C already,” Sam muttered, rolling down a window in a vain attempt to get at some fresh air. The papers scattered across the dashboard were hot to the touch, the leather seats even worse. The sky, bare of any clouds, boasted a sun that baked the asphalt outside. Even the paint on the diner outside the car seemed exhausted by the heat, cracked and peeling.

Sam pushed the sweaty strands back and glanced around, checking to see if anyone was watching. When it was clear the parking lot was deserted, Sam twisted around to rifle through a duffel bag in the backseat, pulling out an ancient blue Polaroid camera.

The diner was eerie, almost entirely abandoned. The windows carried a fine layer of dust like the weight of the world; the front door hung loose on its creaking hinges, swaying slightly in the weak breeze. The sunlight streamed through the shifting leaves of a tree that towered over the whole building, scattering a pattern of shadows across the roof and walls. Sam would kill for the shade right now, as the dust from the cars on the highway swirled down past the ditch and into the lot. Sam half-smiled, watching dust catch the light and glow faintly.

She snapped the photo. The camera rolled out a black, shiny picture; Sam would have to wait a few minutes to see the result. Still smiling to herself, Sam tucked the Polaroid and the camera back into the duffel and sighed impatiently as Deanna finally walked out of the diner.

Once Deanna slid into her seat and tossed a box of pie in the backseat, Sam took a breath. “So, you, uh, wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“You sure? I mean, Cas kinda… I mean…” Sam trailed off as Deanna stiffened. “Sorry. I’m here for you, you know?”

“Come on, Sam, enough with the Hallmark Channel crap, all right? I’m sick of it.” Deanna wouldn’t even look at her.

Well, it wasn’t _Sam’s_ fault, was it? She couldn’t hold all her crap in like that. “Come on, Dee, you’re gonna have to open up about this eventually. Cas is my friend too, and it’s not like you didn’t take a beating.” Sam shuffled her stack of papers and sighed.

“I said I’m sick of it, Sammy. Shut the hell up and let’s drive.” The Impala’s engine rumbled to life as Deanna rolled down her window.

“You know, there’s this thing called _air conditioning,_ ” Sam said, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’ll let you mess with my car when you let me cut your frigging hair,” Deanna shot back. “You trying to be Rapunzel or something?”

“Shut up,” Sam said, but there was no annoyance in her words. Deanna knew as well as anyone that Sam’s hair was surprisingly handy in a fight.

“Make me,” Deanna grinned.

It felt easier to head back to the bunker and lay low for awhile, with all this angel crap hanging over their heads. Deanna just wished Sam would let it go, the whole thing with Cas needed to be dropped. She had half a mind to swing around and pick up Kevin, drag him down to the bunker too. It seemed like the demon-proofed Batcave was a better deal than living in a boat for the rest of the kid’s glory years. If only he’d quit staring at Deanna’s tits when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Not that she was worried about it. He was a wimpy, nerdy college kid. She could kick his ass any day of the week, and he knew it. Kevin kept the ogling to a minimum.

After a while of driving the cassette ran down, but Sam stopped Deanna before she could put in a new one. “What? Zep not good enough for you all of a sudden?” Deanna asked sarcastically.

“Just put the radio on,” Sam said. “Jerk.”

“Dick.” Deanna flipped the radio on.

 _“That was Aerosmith’s ‘Back in the Saddle_ ,’ _from their album_ Rocks _in 1976,”_ droned the radio host. _“Up next is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen._ ”

“Sam! Sam!” Deanna elbowed her sister and turned the radio up high. “Come on, you know it, you sing it!”

“Dee, no,” Sam started, but she was drowned out.

_“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”_

Deanna piped up as she passed a truck. “Caught in a landslide, no escape from realityyyy…” She dragged out the _y_ as she caught Sam’s eye, still hinting at her to join in. “Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see…”

“I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy,” Sam sang halfheartedly.

Deanna picked up the tune again with “Because I’m easy come, easy go, little high, little low —”

They sang together, “Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to meeeeeeee….” Deanna held the note for a good three seconds longer than necessary, making Sam snort and struggle not to laugh. “To me.”

Deanna’s pitchy attempts clashed slightly with Mercury’s pathos-laden vocals, but Sam didn’t complain. It was rare to see Deanna this happy these days. When the guitars came in, Deanna’s whole face lit up as she started rocking out to it, her short hair bouncing as she jammed her head to the riffs.

“I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me —”

“He’s just a poor boy, from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity!” Sam chimed in again.

When the guitar solo blasted through the speakers, Sam elbowed Deanna and pointed at a sign for an upcoming rest stop. “Let’s take a break, stretch our legs!” she shouted over the music. Deanna nodded and picked up on the song a half-second late.

“So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye?” she sang boisterously, keeping an eye out for the rest stop. “So you think you can love me and leave me to die?” She bounced on the leather seats as she jammed out, her short hair flying around her head.

“Ohh, baby! Can’t do this to me, baby!” Sam chorused with her. “Just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here!”

Deanna slowed the car down as the rest stop approached. “Nothing really matters, anyone can see. Nothing really matters…” She trailed off as they cruised into the lot. “Nothing really matters to me.” Her voice cracked slightly as she put the Impala in park.

_“Any way the wind blows…”_

They sat in silence for a moment, letting the last notes of the piano fade out before getting out. “I’m gonna grab a beer from the back, you want one?” She tossed Deanna a bottle and took one for herself.

She sat up on top of a cracked concrete picnic table, listening to the pines whispering in the breeze as she opened up her beer. Deanna sat opposite her on the hood of the car, leaning back on the windshield. Her hair was windswept from leaving the windows rolled down on the highway, light brown tufts sticking up in the back. It was cut choppily — Deanna wouldn’t pay a stylist to cut it, had to do it herself with a pair of scissors from their med kit. That didn’t stop her from hitting on guys every-frigging-where they went. Deanna didn’t even bother with makeup, even when they were posing as FBI.

Not that Sam was any kind of fashion expert, but she at least knew how to pull off a decent braid. She shrugged off her jacket and climbed off the table to dump it in the backseat. As an afterthought, she grabbed her laptop. They should try to find a case, since they didn’t have any plans.

“God, I need to relax,” Deanna said suddenly, taking a swig of beer.

“What happened to that bartender in Tampa? He sure looked like he wanted to help you relax,” Sam said sarcastically, setting up her phone’s camera Deanna laughed and put her middle finger up at her, just as Sam lifted her phone and snapped a picture. The sun through the pines left her sister’s face striped with light and shadows as she laughed. “Printing that one,” she muttered, and slid her phone into her back pocket.

“Not that kind of relax, Sammy. I mean like… the beach.” She stared up at the cloudless, ruthlessly hot sky. “Sun, sand, and swimsuits. Come on, most people get a vacation, why not us?”

“Because our lives suck, Dee,” Sam said. She opened up her laptop and connected to her phone’s wifi hotspot.

Deanna shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Sam browsed local papers, doing quick keyword searches for police investigations, violence, and finally just “ _weird”_ in the hope of finding something to keep them busy. Hell had to be up to no good, as usual, but Crowley was keeping the whole chaotic murder thing down in favor of more bureaucratic soul deals. The devil you know, after all, she thought. She had every reason to want to stab her in her condescending demon face, but keeping her around was better than the alternative. Their recent brush with Abaddon was enough proof of that.

Suddenly she got a hit that made her take a second glance. “Deanna, come check this out.”

“What?” Deanna sat up and slid off the Impala’s hood. “What’s up?”

“I don’t even know. It’s…” She searched for the right word. “It’s frigging _weird.”_

After reading the article, Deanna had to agree. “Guess we’re taking a detour to Indiana,” she said.

It was hard not to be intrigued when the Wheatfield, Indiana local paper claimed a series of glowing… _somethings_ were being spotted all across the county. The drive wasn’t too bad, even if it was a great deal out of their way. But Deanna wasn’t missing out on the strange, spectral glowing lights that were haunting highways, illuminating ponds and swamps, and even hovering in the night sky.

The paper quoted various witnesses, even being so helpful as to print their names and photos in the article. That the town even had an online paper was a freaking miracle, since when the two of them rolled into town, a sign listed the population as 848.

“So I’ll go and talk to those kids who saw the purple stuff. You wanna talk to the police and see if there’s anything else going on?”

“Nah, I ain’t putting a monkey suit on for even ten minutes unless there’s something to this,” Deanna said, shrugging and parking in front of a motel. “Let’s just go see what we can see from the locals.”

It took some asking around, but eventually they found the teenagers who were the first witnesses. Two guys and a girl, hanging out at a tiny, fishing-themed restaurant on the main road through town. They were more than willing to cough up their story when Sam told them they were reporters from a national magazine.

“So, uh…” Deanna squinted at the notes Sam had scrawled on a tiny notepad. “Tina,” she said at last. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

“It was so weird,” Tina said, pushing her long blond hair away from her face. “I still can’t believe it happened.”

“It was cold, like ice cold,” Vince, one of the guys, jumped in. “Like, ice-fishing season cold. And it was last week, hottest week all summer, and in two seconds the whole road just felt frozen.”

“The car stopped, like it froze up too, and we all got out because we didn’t want it to blow up or something…” the third kid, Jacob, added. “And then all of a sudden it was just…” Deanna scrawled down notes as quickly as she could.

“The streetlights were out, there wasn’t anything. The sky was cloudy, no moon, no stars. And Brianna wouldn’t stop taking pictures of the lights,” Tina said, her voice shaking. “Why wouldn’t she stop?”

“Tina?” Deanna asked.

“Can you tell us more about the lights?” Sam pressed.

Tina nodded. “They were purple, like a really pale kind of purple.”

“Lilac?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. And they weren’t moving, they just hung up in the air even when the wind blew, and then they dropped straight down through the ground and everything was black, we couldn’t see anything.”

“Not even a minute later and the streetlights were back on, but Brianna…” Jacob shook his head. “The cops think we’re lying.”

“About what?” Deanna asked, leaning forward. Tina pushed her fries around on her plate, and Jacob just looked scared — not even scared. Haunted.

“Look, they didn’t print this in the local paper, but Brianna was gone when the streetlights came back on. Police called it a freak power outage, said that Brianna probably just took off for her dad and his boyfriend’s place in Montmartre, a few towns over. She likes it there better than with her mom, anyway,” Vince said. “Not even her mom believes us.”

Sam thanked them for their time while Deanna paid for her and Sam’s meals up at the register. The guy at the counter was cute enough to flirt with, but her heart wasn’t in it.

They split up after that, Sam going to the town library to check out older papers while Deanna got them a room at the only motel in town. The place was deserted except for a pimply kid wearing too-tight shorts and a half-unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. She stared him down as he handed over the keys, smirking as he broke into a cold sweat.

She set up camp in the room, lugging the cooler full of beer in with her and dragging a few weapons in as well. She figured it couldn’t hurt to polish the family knife collection while Sammy was off having a research orgy.

Around eight at night, Sam stumbled in through the door with a stack of papers. “What’s all that?” Deanna asked as she stowed away the last of their tiny, needle-thin blades, the kind that were easy to conceal in a sleeve in case someone or something tied them up.

“This is all the missing persons reports, mysterious glowing lights, violent deaths, and other weird crap this town went through, going back fifty years. Oh, and a couple maps of the town and the woods around it.” She deposited her stack on the end of one bed with a groan.

“They just let you walk out with it?”

Sam started to undo her braid. “Photocopied it. Who knew that towns like this could even afford a photocopy machine?” She finally untangled her braid and pulled a thin, silver-studded leather strap loose. She liked her long hair, but she wasn’t stupid. It was target number one in a physical fight. The strap was a little insurance against shifters, werewolves, anything vulnerable to silver.

“The times, they are a-changing,” Deanna said. She started pinning different articles up on the walls, clustering similar weirdness by its kin.

Three hours and a six-pack of beer later, the only new development was that Sam had switched over to wine.

“There’s gotta be something tying all this together,” Deanna said despairingly. “The freaking glowy crap, the disappearances, the skeevy deaths. There’s something going on here, what the hell is it?”

“I don’t know,” Sam groaned. “Fairies? They glow, they abduct, they murder…”

“But you can only see them if you’re firstborn. Brianna saw them just fine and she had an older sister,” Deanna pointed out.

“Unless they _wanted_ to be seen,” Sam said hopelessly.

“Yeah, because most monsters we meet are so into putting up billboards declaring they exist.” Deanna flopped down on a bed and sighed.

“A god, maybe?”

“You wanna tell me the myth where a god sends a plague of freaking flamingos?” Deanna asked rhetorically. “I’d love to hear it, sounds like it must have been a real hit with the Greeks.”

“Deanna, this crap’s been going on for fifty years at least!”

“So someone’s pumping LSD into the water supply.”

“The flamingo in the library looked pretty damn real to me.” Sam ran a hand through her hair.

“You drink any of the water?” Deanna shot back. “Come on, let’s just hit the sack and hope for something more in the morning.”

“Whatever,” Sam said. “Give me a minute, I’m showering.”

“Suit yourself,” Deanna murmured, stripping off her jeans and trading them for pajama shorts, She left her t-shirt on over her sports bra and slid into the musty motel bed.

Deanna didn’t wake up until she heard a wheezing, crazed yell from just outside her window. In a fraction of a second she was on her feet with her pistol in hand. She pushed aside the curtains to see an older guy, maybe in his early fifties or late forties, stumbling recklessly down the sidewalk.

Without thinking, she tucked the gun in the waistband of her shorts and ran outside after him. “Hey, hey! Dude! You!”

The guy turned slowly, and Deanna saw why he was stumbling like he was on a ship. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess, and he stank of alcohol.

“Do you know where she is?” he slurred. “They took her, she’s gone. Did you find her?”

Deanna put her hands on his shoulders. “Look — look at me,” she said. She heard Sammy come up behind her. “Who are you looking for? What happened?”

“My wife,” the man said tearfully — and drunkenly. “Something came into my house last night, and she’s gone. The police won’t do anything, said she... must have ran off with a lover. But I saw something, great glowing eyes, too many eyes. And slimy, so slimy those hands. They didn’t take me, just her. Where did they take her, did you see?”

“I’m sorry,” Deanna said. “I wish I could help.”

“Sir, can you tell us what else you saw? Did it get really cold, or did you smell anything strange? Whatever you can remember, it might help,” Sam said gently.

“I… remember… I felt like there were spiders crawling all over me, in my hair and my mouth and on my eyes. And there was a smell, like chocolate but thicker and…” He shuddered. “Deader.”

“Deader?” Sam and Deanna exchanged glances. “What do you mean, ‘deader?’” Deanna asked.

“Like chocolate and a funeral home, rotting meat and em-, embl—”

“Embalming fluid?” Sam suggested.  
  


“Tha’s the one,” the man said, nodded profusely. “Chocolate and death.” He sagged and collapsed. Deanna and Sam barely caught him and lowered him to the ground safely.

“Chocolate and death,” Deanna said in disbelief. “What the hell?”

Sam quickly dialled the police. “I’d like to make a report. There’s a guy, middle-aged, he just passed out in front of the motel on Tenth Street. He smells drunk. My name? Uh, Christine McVie.” She hung up and followed Deanna back into the motel.

Deanna had already closed the windows and was staring contemplatively at the wall of newspapers.

Sam wondered how to ask her question delicately, then decided to just go for it. “Uh, Deanna? I hate to bring this up now of all times, you know, so soon and all, but don’t you think we should call Cas? See if she knows anything about this?”

Deanna huffed. “Yeah, I’m sure Cas’ll be real interested. She bailed like eight seconds after she broke free from Naomi or whatever the hell happened. You think she’ll even show up for some low-level monster thing?”

Sam sat on her bed. “You know, I’m not so sure this _is_ a low-level monster thing. This whatever-it-is, it’s powerful. And it doesn’t seem to be following any rules or patterns. Maybe it’s bigger than what we know, maybe Cas might _know_ something about it!”

Deanna smiled bitterly. “Yeah. Right. Bet that’ll be an awesome visit. ‘Hey, Cas we need your help.’ ‘It’s a Trickster, geniuses. Have fun killing it.’ And then, _poof!_ She’s gone again.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Sam said dryly, running a comb through her hair.

“I’m going out, get some breakfast or something,” Deanna said. “This thing doesn’t make any more sense sober than it did drunk.”

She ducked into the shower, changed into jeans and a tank top, and took off in less than ten minutes, telling Sam she’d be back by noon.

The moment Sam heard the Impala’s engine rev up and fade as Deanna drove down the street, she settled down on her bed and pressed her hands together, feeling a little bit like a child as she did so.

“Uh, hey, Cas. It’s, um, it’s Sam. Look, something weird’s going on in Wheatfield, Indiana. We’re at the Jaybird Motel on Tenth Street, room 42. There’s all kinds of phenomena, and Deanna and I — especially Deanna — we’d really like to talk to you, and we think you could help.”

“Sam.” She opened her eyes to see Castiel standing before her, looking pale and tired. “You called.”

She breathed out a half-laugh. “Yeah, Cas, I called.”

“Where’s Deanna?”  
  


Sam waved a hand. “She went out to get breakfast. The thing is…” She shook her head.

“Sam, I realize you must think this is important, but you have no idea how dangerous it is for me to stop to talk with you for any significant period of time. Tell me what’s happening here.” Something in Cas’s eyes told Sam that she wasn’t kidding around.

“There’s weird-ass crap happening all over this county. Disappearances, unseasonable lightning storms, flamingo plague…”

“What?” Castiel frowned.

  
“Long story,” Sam admitted. “But the main thing is the lights. They’ve been cropping up for decades, all kinds of colors, different shapes and sizes. Nothing can explain what they are or how they’re happening. And a guy’s wife was abducted last night, he says when it happened he could just smell, uh, ‘death and chocolate.’ How’s that for weird, huh?”

“That is… strange,” she said, frowning. “How long did you say it’s been happening?”

“About fifty years for sure, maybe more,” Sam said. “Why? You know what it is?”

“I’m not sure…” Cas trailed off when a thunk, coupled with a wet sort of _plop_ , sounded across the room, as if something had collided soggily with the window.

Cas went to the window and pulled back the curtain to reveal a frog stuck to the glass and dripping water. It opened its mouth, but rather than a croak, it emitted a musical whirring noise. Another smacking sound drew Cas’s attention further out, at the street. She squinted at it, then turned urgently to Sam.

Sam was still staring at the sky in shock. “Uh, Cas?” she said. “Not to alarm you or anything, but does it look like it’s raining frogs?”

“Well, that’s exactly what’s happening,” Cas said, sounding unreasonably calm. “But I recommend you and Deanna get out of this town immediately. I’ll deal with the, uh, frogs. And the rest. But you and Deanna, you need to get as far away from here as you can.”

“But, Cas —”

  
“You two have _never_ faced anything like this before. _Ever._ You do _not_ want to be here if it is angered, and being hunted? Will surely make it angry.”

“Okay, okay.” Sam dug her phone out of her pocket and called Dean. After three unsuccessful tries, she shook her head. “I can’t get ahold of her.”

“Then _try again,_ ” Cas said. “I cannot keep watch over the two of you if I am to deal with what is happening here. This place is not safe for you.”  
  


“It’s safe for you?” Sam asked.

Castiel didn’t answer.

“I’m staying until we find Deanna, and until the thing that’s doing this is gone, dead, whatever it takes. I’m not leaving you to deal with it alone, and neither would Deanna.”

Deanna groaned as she drifted back into consciousness, noting the banging in her head and the way her hands were definitely tied above her head. She tried to remember how she’d got here. Was it a fun night that got a little too fun? She shifted in an attempt to sit up straight. Nope, definitely not, by the way her entire body ached. Though the bondage was not too strange for her.

“Where the hell am I?” she muttered weakly, glancing around. She pulled a knife from her sleeve and started sawing through the cord holding her wrists. “Whatever the hell you are, I’m gonna rip you apart!” she shouted into the empty space around her.

She heard the click of high heels echoing around her. Quickly she finished cutting through the ties holding her and leaped to her feet just in time to see Cas round a corner. “Cas?” she said. “I… what the hell are you doing here?”

Cas stared at her blankly, saying nothing. Slowly, she removed her trenchcoat and let it fall to the floor.

“Cas?” Deanna edged backwards, trying to keep as much of the area in her sight as she could. Cas shed her loose-fitting suit jacket as well, staring at Dean with the curiosity of a wolf that would pounce at any moment.

She backed up and winced as her back hit the wall. She had nowhere to go. Castiel’s fist collided with her jaw.

“Son of a bitch!” she gasped. “Cas, come on! You can fight this!” Cas hit her again, this time in the shoulder. “Whatever this is, whatever’s going on in your head, it’s not you, you can fight it!”

Castiel hit again, her palm open to slap Deanna across the face. “Cas, please!”

A moment later, Castiel went stock-still and vanished. “Gone again,” Deanna panted through her now incredibly sore jaw. “Stop — _leaving_ me.” She blinked, her head spinning.

When her eyes opened again, the light coming in through the roof had shifted. Deanna tried to work out where she was; it looked like some kind of corn silo, the hole in the roof the only way for light to come in. Now it was streaming in almost from directly overhead.

“I loved Andrew Richardson more than I ever loved you, you know.” Deanna whipped around and saw Sam leaning up against the wall. “I mean, sure, you’re my sister. But I never looked for you because I was happier without you. I was happy you were gone and out of my life. I was better off without you around.”

Deanna shook her head. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” Sam said. “I wanted to marry him, I wanted to have a family. I wish sometimes that I could just leave you behind, you’re so much dead weight on my shoulders.”

Deanna couldn’t breathe. “Sammy…”

“I wish you stayed in Purgatory.”

Deanna stepped forward, but Sam vanished. A wet gurgling took her place, and Deanna whipped around to see Bobby’s body, lifeless and pinned against the wall. Bobby’s eyes stared blankly at Deanna, but she could hear her voice in her head: _it’s your fault. I’m gone and it’s all your fault. You could have saved me and you didn’t do jacksquat._

Then Bobby’s corpse was gone, replaced by Castiel, her throat cut and dripping blood. She stared at Deanna, her dead eyes filled with anger. Her body glowed and flared, searing wings into the bricks of the wall, then she dropped to the floor in a bloodied heap. _I rebelled for this? For_ you _?_ Deanna held her breath, trying to suppress the tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

Sam was there instead suddenly, her body spasming violently as blood oozed, thick and almost black, across the floor. _I wish you were still in Hell._ Deanna lost the battle to keep from crying, tears streaming down her face.

As she helplessly watched Sam convulse on the floor, her hair slick and clumped with blood, Deanna felt a presence just behind her at her shoulder. “I don’t care about you,” Castiel whispered cruelly. “I never cared about you, or for you. I don’t want to even be _near_ you. Why would I leave if I wanted to stay?”

Sam’s body had gone deathly still, but still her pale lips moved. “I wish you never brought me back. I wish you let me stay dead so I could get away from _you_.”

“Don’t you say that! Not you! Don’t you say for one second that I you hate me, that I don’t mean anything to you.” Deanna was sobbing, barely managing to choke out a few words at a time.

“You’re nothing,” Sam said. Deanna, gasping for breath, just nodded.

“You’re weak,” Castiel added. Deanna cringed.

“You should just let me go like I want,” Sam said, as Cas murmured, “Angels can’t love anything, you know, but even if I were human — even if I could care for anyone, I would _never_ care for _you_.”

“I know, I know, I know,” Deanna whispered. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t get in your way, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Sam noted dispassionately that the motel also had no air conditioning. She wondered if she only noticed because the reality of what Cas was trying to explain was too much to wrap her head around.

The frog Cas had unstuck from the window now lay in carefully segmented pieces on the table. When Cas first cut into it, it had oozed a sticky blue-green substance, but the frog had no insides, just a sticky flesh that smelled faintly of vinegar. The fleshy chunks, when Cas squished them, produced the same gooey teal fluid, like water from a sponge.

“It’s not a creature as you would think of it,” Castiel was saying rapidly, trying to spit out as much information as possible in five seconds. “It’s not of this plane. Or of this universe. The best way to describe it is that it’s bleeding into this universe from another. It’s an oversimplification, of course. It would be more sensible to explain it in a series of equations and a form of physics humanity has yet to discover. I could try to draw a diagram of the mechanics involved...”

“Get to the point?” Sam asked anxiously.

Cas shook her head. “The point is that it can’t be killed and it can’t be defeated. The only way to stop it is to reason with it.” She wished she _could_ make it disappear. Deanna was out there alone and this thing might already have her in its clutches. Something as alien as this, it might kill her without realizing what it was doing.

Sam pressed her lips together. “And if it has Deanna, then she’s screwed.”

“Maybe not,” Cas said. “As I said, it is not of this world. It may not even understand the harm it causes.”

“We still don’t have time to keep chitchatting. We have to find Deanna, _now.”_

“I already searched the town for her. If she’s… not dead, she’s warded to me. But I could tell you the, uh, “Ground Zero” for this entity.” She made air-quotes around ‘Ground Zero.’

“I may be able to seal this entity back in its own universe,” she continued. “If I can reason with it and help it see the best path, it may agree to it. But doing that, mending a rip in the universe, however small, will deplete my grace. And I… I will not be able to shield myself from Heaven, and I _must_ do that.”

“We have to do whatever we can,” Sam said. “Whatever it takes.”

Cas nodded. After what happened in Lucifer’s Crypts… she had to keep Deanna safe, had to make it up to her. She placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and they were suddenly standing in a clearing, near a river.

Sam steadied herself, trying not to puke. “Okay, warn me next time.”  
  


“It _is_ an emergency,” Cas pointed out. “You may want to get as far from me as you can, and find Deanna.”

“Got it,” Sam said, her voice much higher than usual. “Find Deanna. Good plan.”

Castiel began to speak in a language Sam didn’t recognize as she started running in the opposite direction. “Dee! Where are you?”

“I know you can hear me,” Castiel said, keeping her voice as soft as possible. The last thing she wanted was to harm or threaten this entity accidentally. “I am here to make an offer. You do not belong to this universe. I want to return you to your home.” _I have to save Deanna. I have failed her too many times, I cannot fail her again._

The trees around her rustled. Castiel suppressed the fear that rose up in her; she was a soldier. This thing could crush her without even a touch, but she had to do it. Beneath her feet, the earth began to quake, and slowly Castiel felt herself sinking into the ground, the dirt turning to soup as she stood upon it.

Sam stumbled through the woods, slipping on uneven ground and entangling her hair in the thin branches of the trees around her. “Dee!”

A piercing shriek echoed through the woods. Sam ran faster before breaking into an all-out sprint when she caught sight of a decaying brick silo at the edge of the trees.

Castiel was still utterly alone, in the silence. Not even a bird sang. Deanna was here somewhere, she was sure of it. She had to do whatever it took. Cas murmured, “Do we have a deal?”

There was no response, not even a physical manifestation to face. But in the trees and the wind and the midday sunlight, Castiel felt the answer: _of course._

Sam shouted for her sister again, but all she could hear was sobbing within the silo. “Dammit,” she breathed, and kicked the door in.

Curled up on the floor, shaking and crying, was Deanna. Standing over her was Cas, bare of her coat and jacket, kicking the crap out of her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Deanna repeated helplessly.

Suddenly the Castiel Sam saw was gone as if she never was. Deanna was still lying there, weak and bruised. Sam knelt by her side and tried to help her sit up. “I’m sorry, Sammy, I know you want me to leave you be,” Deanna whispered, shaking her head weakly. “‘m so damn sorry.”

“Cas!” Sam yelled. “Cas, I found her! She’s o— she’s alive!” Because Deanna wasn’t okay. Nowhere near. “It’s okay, Dee,” she whispered. “I’m gonna get you out of here, bring you someplace safe.”

Deanna struggled weakly against Sam’s arms. “Lemme go, I’m sorry, just let me leave like you want, _please_ I’ll do whatever you want just please don’t hurt me anymore.”

“Cas!” Sam shouted.

Castiel appeared at the broken door, pale and sweaty. “Is she alright?”

“Depends what you mean,” Sam said softly. “She needs help, but there’s no hospital in town. Closest one must be at least an hour away.”  
  


“Then we have to hurry. I can’t fly us,” Castiel explained. “Sending it home, it drained my grace as I said it would, more than I expected. I can’t just heal her either,” she said, heading off Sam’s next question. “We’ll have to carry her to the car and drive her to the hospital.”

“I…” Sam tried to step back from the situation. “Yeah. It’ll be okay. Let’s go.”

They found the Impala parked outside a small breakfast diner in Wheatfield. Cas laid Deanna down in the backseat and sat there with her, Deanna’s head in her lap as she wept gently. Castiel bit her lip, then decided it was for the best.

She tapped Deanna’s head with her fingertip, sending her into a dreamless, relaxed sleep. “Cas —” Sam said warningly.

“It was all I could do for her,” Cas said, her voice soft but made of iron. “Do not tell me what I may and may not use my grace for.” It didn’t matter to her if Sam understood.

“You’re drained enough already, Cas,” Sam said, but she let it go. She had a feeling nothing she could say would convince Cas to put Deanna second to herself.

When they at last pulled up to St. Mary Hospital, Deanna was starting to stir again, her consciousness hazy. Cas worried that she may have suffered a minor concussion from whatever she’d faced, from the lack of focus in her eyes.

“Ma’am? Can you tell me what happened?” A nurse asked Castiel as a few others lifted Deanna onto a gurney and rolled her down the hall.

Castiel stared after Deanna, not sure what to say to the man. “Can I stay with her?”

“You will only be in the way,” the nurse informed her gently. “Once we’ve checked her over and she’s in a better state, you’ll be allowed to see her.”

“My sister was mugged,” Sam offered, handing over a form. “We didn’t see most of it, we caught up with her right after it happened.”  
  


“I’m sorry. Do you want to file a report with the police?” The nurse, Thomas, asked.

Sam shook her head, putting a hand on Cas’s shoulder. “They didn’t take anything of value, and these things happen. We just want, um, Lindsey to get better.”

It seemed like hours before the nurse returned for them. “Lindsey’s resting now, asleep, but if you’d like to stay with her for a while, you can,” he told them. “Just don’t try to wake her up, some of the most important healing takes place while patients sleep. Give her time, and she should recover fine.”

“Y-yeah,” Sam said. “Thanks.”

Deanna looked strangely small in the hospital bed, asleep and wearing only a hospital gown. Her hair lay haphazardly around her head.

Cas slowly pulled up a chair. “I wish I could heal her,” she said. “But my grace…”

“I know,” Sam said softly. “What — what happened when you sent the thing back where it came from?”

Castiel frowned. “That’s the strange part. Nothing. I just felt empty, scraped clean inside.” She wouldn’t tell Sam how cold and distant she’d felt, too, that this creature was somehow hurting Deanna and she could do _nothing_ to make it feel remorse for what it did. She’d wished she could tear that thing apart, but she could only send it home.

Sam left a few times, to grab coffee and use the bathroom, then in search of a meal. Castiel never moved, staying at Deanna’s side without variation. Several times, nurses came in to check on Deanna, but they didn’t ask Castiel to leave the room.

Sam returned from the cafeteria with a pudding cup, a spoon, and a magazine. “Thought you might want something to do,” she said.

“I’m fine,” Cas said, keeping her eyes on Deanna’s sleeping face. Her face was beautiful while she slept, of course, her face freckled and her pink lips parted slightly; but Castiel preferred Deanna awake, sarcastic and animated, full of life and a warrior spirit.

“Cas?” Sam asked.

“Hm?” Castiel glanced up at her.

“You can take a break, you know. I can keep an eye on her.” Sam nodded at Deanna. “Doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere, you know?”

“I’m happy to stay,” Cas said. Sam didn’t understand how much.

“But you said you had to protect yourself from the other angels. I mean, I hate to say it, but you’re right. You stay here, unwarded and without your grace to hide you, and you’re screwed. And so are we, if they see us here. We’re not exactly at the top of Heaven’s MVP list right now.” Sam stood up and paced the room, keeping her eyes on Cas. She hadn’t even looked away from Deanna in the last ten minutes. “It’d be good for you to stretch your legs, too.”

“I am an angel, that’s not necessary.” Castiel moved to reach out and touch Deanna’s limp hand, but she stopped herself. She wouldn’t do such a thing if Deanna were conscious in fear of making her uncomfortable. How was doing it as she slept any better?

“Cas…” Sam began, concerned.

“But you’re right. I should ward myself from other angels. It would be safer.” She stood up reluctantly. “Call me if she wakes up.”

“Of course, Cas, but what are you gonna do?” Sam reached for the keys to the Impala, then thought better of it. Cas didn’t know how to drive, and Deanna would kill her if she thought she let Cas behind the wheel.

“I will find a place that specializes in body modification and tattoo warding on my vessel.”

Sam frowned. “Really? That’s not — I don’t know, weird? You’re kind of tattooing Jenny Novak, aren’t you?”

“Jenny is in Heaven. This body… this body was reconstructed by God. It is mine, and mine alone. It is more like Jenny’s twin, in a sense,” Castiel said, trying to explain in a way Sam would understand. “I see no issue tattooing a sigil for my own protection.”

Sam shrugged. “Whatever you say, I guess.” She hesitated, then said, “Take your time. She’ll be here, when you come back.”

While Cas was gone, Sam suddenly felt the pressure of being in the middle of a strange town, surrounded by hospital staff who, she had to admit, weren’t that unlikely to notice that she and Deanna were identical to a pair of serial killers who made the news two years ago. She buried her face in a magazine and tried not to look like an experienced killer.

When Cas came back, she took up her place at Deanna’s side as if she never left.

A few hours later and Sam was climbing the walls. “You know what, Cas? I’m gonna head back to Wheatfield, grab the stuff Dee and I left in the motel. Maybe get a room in town here.”  
  


“I’ll stay with Deanna,” Cas said immediately. “I don’t need sleep, and I’d rather stay.”  
  


Sam smiled fondly. “I get that, but Cas, the hospital’s not gonna let you stay here all night.”  
  


“I…” She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But I’ll leave when the staff asks, not before.” She couldn’t let Deanna out of her sight now, not when she’d failed so many times.

“See you when I get back,” Sam said. She cast another glance around the room before taking off.

Deanna made a groan in her sleep and shifted, turning her head to one side. Cas gazed down at her, suddenly unsure of herself. Deanna looked so peaceful like this, despite the swelling and bruising that had developed. Cas wished, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that she hadn’t used so much of her power. Deanna could be walking and talking right now if it weren’t for that.

That night, Sam drove the two of them to a nearby motel, paying for an extra bed despite Cas’s insistence that she didn’t need it. “You don’t, maybe, but you’re still drained. Give yourself a chance to relax. Running all the time wears you out.” And I should know, she added silently.

Sam knew Cas was wide awake from how her friend lay atop the blankets, shifting around occasionally as she sought a more comfortable position.

The dead air in the room left Sam itching to get up and move around. She thought about climbing out of bed and doing push-ups just to pass the time while she waited for the sun, but then what was the point in paying for a bed?

She missed Deanna’s snoring, stupid though it sounded. It was like this when her sister was in Purgatory, until she met Andrew. Andrew didn’t snore like Dee, but he was a comfort in the dark when Sam thought about getting in the car and driving into a tree.

This wasn’t helping. She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, then pushed herself up to lean against the headboard of the creaky bed.

A moment later, she saw Cas sit up, illuminated by the thin stripe of moonlight shining between the curtains. “I’m sorry about all this,” Cas said loudly and clearly.

Sam watched the curtains flutter in the light breeze blowing through the open window. “What do you mean?”

“You know.” Castiel turned to her. “I hurt her, in Lucifer’s Crypts. And I should never have left you after Samandriel— after I killed her.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Cas, you said she came at you —”

“ _She_ didn’t.” Cas shook her head. “It was Naomi. She forced me to do it, but I… I should have resisted. I should never have allowed her to have so much power over me, I should have run while I still had the chance.”

Sam slid back down beneath the sheets. “No one blames you for that, Cas. It wasn’t your choice.” She heard Cas take a breath to argue and cut her off. “Try to sleep. _Even_ if you don’t need to. It’ll make the morning come faster, and we can go back to the hospital to check on Deanna.”

Castiel released her breath slowly and sank back down on the bed. “Good night, Sam.”

“Night, Cas.”

Sam took only the briefest cold shower the next morning before getting dressed; Cas, of course, was already ready and waiting at the door. Her hair was mussed, and Sam had a strange feeling that Cas had actually slept in spite of herself.

Deanna curled up deeper under the blue flower-patterned sheet. _If I stay under here,_ she thought, _everything will be okay._

She remembered telling Dad that, once, when she was really little. Like she thought if she never got out of bed nothing bad would happen. Dad told her to act her age and get out of bed, because that’s the job and it’s _their_ job.

But maybe she wanted to stay in bed. Damn it, it was easier.

 _Life ain’t supposed to be easy, kiddo._ The man was seven years gone, but Deanna couldn’t get his words out of her head.

Outside the soft, soap-scented cocoon she was wrapped in, the door creaked open. “Dee? The doctors said you’re awake.”

Deanna didn’t speak. She knew whatever she’d seen in the silo hadn’t been real, a hallucination, a goddamn acid trip for God’s sake. But that didn’t stop her from flinching at Sam’s voice.

“They said no bones are broken, so… that’s good. Right?” Sam sat in the chair next to Deanna’s bed. “But your face is pretty beat up, and you’re gonna hurt like hell for awhile — cracked rib, nothing time won’t heal on its own.”

Deanna lifted the covers off her head. “Sammy, I…”

Sam shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Dee. I’m just glad we got to you in time.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Deanna slowly pushed the sheets down and sat up. Sam nodded at the door.

Castiel stood there, her hair unkempt, her face pale and even her coat looking rumpled. “So you’re here,” Deanna said, trying not to show any reaction.

Cas shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes.”

“Well, bully for you.” Deanna refused to meet Cas’s gaze. “Nice for you to show up. You wanna put me back together so we can take off and take care of whatever the hell did this to me?”  
  


Cas looked away.

Sam put her hand on Deanna’s shoulder. “Dee—”

Deanna jerked away. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

“Dee, I called Cas in while you were getting breakfast. Yesterday morning.”

“I… what?” Deanna looked from Sam to Cas. “What the hell happened?”

Sam looked at Cas meaningfully, and slowly Cas took a step back. “I think I will find something for Deanna to eat.” She was gone in a moment.

“Taking off again. What a frigging surprise.”

 _“Dee._ Cas saved our asses. She saved _your_ ass.” Sam got up and closed the door. “I called her down to help. She sent that thing back where it came from, and helped me get you here.” She sat down at Deanna’s side again. “Give her a chance.”

“Sorry I’m not feeling the warm and fuzzy right now. You and her just gave me a hell of a beatdown.”

“What?” Sam leaned forward. “What are you…”

Deanna shook her head, suppressing tears as she remembered what happened. Had it really been a day? “It had me, and I just, I saw you there, and sometimes you were dead and sometimes you wanted me dead and sometimes you just wanted to punch my face in. Cas too.” She let out a ragged breath and ran her fingers through her hair. “You two, you’ll leave. You always do. Should just let you get on with it.”

“Deanna, we’re gonna take you to the bunker. Cas, she can’t fix you—”

“Why not?”

“Because she blew her circuits shoving an ultraterrestrial camel through the eye of a needle. She needs time to recharge.” Sam stood up. “We’re checking you out as soon at the doctors give us the O.K. When we get home, we’ll see what we can do.”

Deanna groaned as she explored her bruises with her fingertips. “Yeah — yeah, I can see that one being a problem,” she muttered as she hit on a particularly nasty ache in her upper abdomen.

The doctors released her just before noon, with a warning to avoid working too hard until her rib was improved. They told her to have it checked frequently, and to take her prescribed pills in the meantime. “We’ll have that healed up soon as Cas is up to snuff, Dee, don’t worry,” Sam reassured her as they walked out to the car.

  
Cas waited there, looking oddly hopeful as they approached. “Deanna,” she said, feeling like the whole world was encompassed in one word.

“Cas,” Deanna answered curtly. “You in back with me, then? Docs said I shouldn’t drive with the heavy meds still in my system.”

“I suppose so.” Cas opened up the back door for her, but Deanna walked around to the other side of the car and got in there. Cas hesitated before taking her place as well.

By the time they reached the bunker, it was almost midnight, thanks to their stops to stretch their legs and pick up lunch and dinner. Sam insisted that Deanna go straight to bed, no stops for a beer (“You know how bad an idea it is to mix those pills with beer, Dee?”).

Deanna had put up just enough of a fuss to save face, but honestly, she was exhausted. She retreated to her room and had just pulled off her white T-shirt to sleep in her sports bra when her door swung open. “Damn it!” she shouted. “Cas!”

Cas looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I came to watch over you.” She hesitated, then stepped into the room. “In case you need anything. You will heal faster in optimal conditions. I’ll get you water, adjust the temperature…” she trailed off at Deanna’s expression.

“I don’t need a freaking babysitter, Cas. I need sleep.”

Cas sat down in the chair in the corner of the room, just under a rack of eclectic weapons from various countries. “I’m here to ensure you get the best sleep you can.”

Deanna snorted at the images that line conjured. “You know, for an angel, you sure sound a lot like the opening of a porno.” She shrugged. “Just — don’t get too close to me.”

“Personal space,” Cas said. “Got it.” As Deanna reached to turn out her light, Cas pulled her vessel’s long black hair over her shoulder and began to practice a braid. Sam had described the methods to her and showed her a video while they were getting gas earlier. Even in the dark, her fingers tried to follow the pattern.

“Cas?” Deanna’s voice came out of the darkness. “You know you can leave me alone for a few hours, right?”

Castiel didn’t answer. Deanna tried again. “Just get out of here. I don’t need you to keep watch over me like I’m five.”

“Deanna. This is not negotiable. Let me help.”  
  


Deanna flinched at the sudden will in Castiel’s voice. She could feel a phantom fist colliding with her cheek, seeing the glint of an angel blade and feeling the choking dust of a dark crypt caking her throat as her nose dripped blood.

She shuddered, and the feeling was gone. “Cas, just get out.” The demand was weak, and even in the dark Deanna knew the stubborn expression Cas wore.

“I’m staying, Deanna, until you’re better.”

“Fine. Do whatever the hell you want.”

In spite of herself, later that night Deanna woke and requested a glass of water. Cas returned in only a few minutes, passing her the glass in the bright light of Deanna’s lamp. They didn’t speak as Deanna drained the glass and turned out the light once more.

Late the next morning, Deanna stumbled out of bed with Cas at her side every step of the way should she stumble. Deanna insisted she stay at arm’s length.

Sam turned around with an armful of books as they walked into the library. “What’s all this?” Deanna asked.

“Oh, y’know, I just thought since the bunker’s library system is a little archaic, I’d reorganize the place. They have most of their texts ordered by the dates they were published, can you believe that?”  
  
“Oh, yeah, I believe it,” Deanna said, rolling her eyes. “And?”

“And I’m switching the bunker to the Dewey Decimal System,” Sam answered cheerfully. “Wanna help?”  
  


“Let me think,” Deanna drawled. “Uh, no.”

Cas looked interested. “What is the ‘Dewey Decimal System?’”

Deanna turned to Cas and shook her head. “No. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Sammy, we have anything to eat?”

“I think there’s cereal and milk,” Sam suggested absently as she pulled the books from another shelf and heaved them up onto a table. “And I made coffee.”

“Awesome,” Deanna muttered, and disappeared into the kitchen.

“So how’d your night go?” Sam asked Cas.

“She told me to stay as far away as I could and repeatedly suggested I do something anatomically impossible,” Cas responded dryly. “I think it went well.”

“Yeah, well, we all get a little pissy when we’re in pain. She’ll get over it.” Sam swiped a rag over the shelf she’d cleaned out, wincing as it came away with about fifty-five years of dust. “That can’t be good for those vellum manuscripts they’ve got on the medieval shelves. Even odds on them being half-eaten by bugs.”

She turned around and brushed her hands off as Cas awkwardly sat at a table. “Look. I know Dee’s upset. And I get it. She went through a lot, and she’s pissed for good reason. But she can’t keep carrying it with her. She needs a break. And I really think you deserve one too.”

Cas frowned, but Sam barrelled ahead. “How many millennia did you spend watching the Earth? With no thanks, no rest stops, and no naps. Cut yourself some slack and hear me out.” She sat down across from Cas. “There’s a fair and beer festival in Wisconsin this weekend. If you want, and Deanna’s feeling up to it, I’ll give you two the go-ahead to head on out there and leave me behind. I’ve got my work cut out for me here.”

“You think she would agree to a vacation with me?” Castiel asked. She heard the sound of clanging pots on tile in the kitchen followed by Deanna’s colorful swearing.

“Unless she’d rather help me get the library into decent order.” Sam grinned and stood up as Deanna appeared in the doorway, precariously balancing a coffee mug and a bowl filled to the brim with milk and Lucky Charms.

“What was that?” Deanna asked, setting her bowl on a table.

“You and Cas are heading to a fair and beer festival in Ashland, Wisconsin.” Sam set her open laptop in front of her sister.

“I’m not going to some hick town to get hopped up on moonshine with _Cas_ of all people…” Deanna paused, squinting at the screen. “They have free booze all weekend?”

Sam nodded. “And unless you wanna help me scrub out the library and organize every last scroll, tome, and manuscript, you’re going with Cas.”

Deanna leaned forward on the table. “No. Freaking. Way.”

“What happened to needing a break?” Sam asked coolly. “Here’s your chance to rest and have a little fun, Dee!”

“And what about you, huh? This doesn’t look like resting to me.” Deanna gestured expansively at the heaps of scrolls stacked haphazardly across the table. She couldn’t believe Sammy’s hypocrisy.

Sam rolled her eyes. “What do you want me to say, Dee? You’re the one who needed a break, not me. I know it’s not beach, booze, and boys like you wanted, but it’s sure got the booze and it sure as hell is gonna have the boys, so quit complaining. I’m giving you a pass for the week.”

“And Cas is my babysitter now, huh?” Deanna snapped.

“You know I can hear you,” Castiel said, hurt, but she went ignored as Deanna threw her hands up.

“I’m sick of you acting like I can’t handle myself all of a sudden. I’m not some fragile princess who can’t deal with her crap, who crumbles when someone she c—” she glanced at Cas and amended, “someone kicks her ass. My pride’s pretty much the only thing hurt here.” She had to get Sam to drop the subject. They were walking on thin ice now, too close to things she did _not_ want to discuss with Cas around.

“ _Deanna_. Just accept that I’m trying to do something nice for you here, okay?” Sam dropped a load of books on the table, sending up clouds of dust. “Give it a chance. Have fun and drink until your legs give out.” Full permission, no conditions. Except she had to take Cas with her.

“I’m not doing it. End of story.” Deanna folded her arms and cocked an eyebrow in a challenge.  
  


“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Deanna carried her duffel bag to the foot of the stairs, sticking her tongue out at Sam. She still couldn’t believe her sister had strong-armed her into a vacation. “What the hell is Cas packing, anyway? She doesn’t even have to change clothes.”

As if in answer, Castiel walked in, carrying a cooler in one hand and a duffel bag in the other. “I assume you’ll need to eat,” she said calmly. “I felt we should bring a variety of provisions.”

“‘Provisions?’ Not like we’re heading into the freaking desert, Cas. There’ll be fast food joints all down the highway,” Deanna pointed out, but she was a little grateful in spite of herself. The kitchenettes in most motels were clumsy and cramped at best and violated several health codes at worst, but the idea of maybe having pancakes for breakfast instead of a bag of Pringles was appealing. Though for all she knew, Cas had thrown ten jars of pickles into that cooler.

As Deanna groaned and started mounting the stairs with her bag in tow, Sam pulled Cas aside. “Make sure to take some pictures of you guys. Try to do them when she’s not looking, okay?”

Cas squinted at the camera. “Okay.” It couldn’t be too hard to work out how to use it. Electricity was a far less complex power source than souls.

Even at six in the morning, the heat was scorching, but it was cut by a generous, cool breeze that felt like bliss on Deanna’s skin. Around the car, as if in some kind of a halo, heat waves rose off her black metal surface. She winced when she grabbed the handle, then wrapped her hand in the end of her shirt to open up the door. Cas seemed unbothered by the intense heat, opening her door with ease and tossing her duffel and cooler in back.

The first several hours of the drive were cast in an awkward silence, as Cas tried to think of something, anything to say. “Deanna —” she began at last.

“Don’t. Sam might think I need you to keep an eye on me, but trust me. Not happening. We get there, I go party, you can do whatever the hell angels do, and then we go home.”

“I’d rather stay with you,” Cas said.

Deanna laughed. “Right. Yeah, ‘cause you do that so much.”

Castiel turned to gaze out the window. “I told you once, that much of the time I’d rather be with you. It is out of my hands, I have things I _must_ do.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Deanna grabbed a cassette at random from the box at her feet and jammed it in the player. The moment the music started, she turned it up. “You won’t know this one,” she said. “Come Sail Away by Styx. From their album The Grand Illusion.” She tapped the cassette player.

_“We lived happily forever, so the story goes. But somehow, we missed out on that pot of gold.”_

Cas turned again to face forward and watch the road. In the corner of her eye she saw Deanna nodding her head to the music. “ _But we’ll try best that we can, to carry on.”_

The melodic tune changed into something Cas recognized as far more Deanna’s style. “ _A gathering of angels appeared above my head. They sang to me a song of hope and this is what they said, they said —_ ”

Deanna joined in suddenly for the chorus. She nudged Cas as if urging her to join in. Then her face clouded over. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Forgot you were here.” She reached to turn the music down, but Cas reached out and stopped her. Deanna drew her hand back as if she’d been stung.

“I don’t mind,” Cas said, trying not to make this any more awkward than it was. “Seeing you smile, it’s rare these days.”

Deanna huffed a laugh. “Well, guess I do need a break then, huh?” She heard her stomach growl. “Listen, Cas, I’m starving, so if you don’t mind, I’m gonna —”

“I brought snacks,” Cas put in immediately. “You had several packages of, uh, ‘sour worms’ in your kitchen that are only a few days past the expiration date.”  
  


Deanna laughed then, as Dennis DeYoung’s vocals dissolved into the guitar and the cassette transitioned to the next song. “Maybe later, Cas. I meant, like, real food. Lunch.” She signaled her turn off the highway as she saw the next exit approaching. “See? The Sunset Diner, just off the highway.

The diner turned out to be one of those theme-park 1950s types, all _Grease_ and Elvis. Deanna rolled her eyes at the cheesy decor — the checkered linoleum, the chrome freaking _everything._ In the corner, a jukebox tiredly piped a song so dusty Deanna could hear it wheeze. “Seriously? ‘Blue Christmas’? It’s _July,_ ” she muttered as she seated herself and Cas at a table.

The waiter seemed incongruous with the space, his shaggy Bieber-hair falling in his eyes and his skinny jeans clashing with the leather-and-letterman’s jacket vibe the diner exuded. The kid was maybe nineteen at a stretch. This was obviously a summer job in a Podunk town.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked them once they were seated.

“Chocolate malt, french fries for me. Cas?” Deanna glanced across the table.

“Deanna, I don’t need to eat,” Cas whispered.

“Well, I’m gonna look like a bitch if I’m the only one eating. Pick something,” Deanna hissed back, then gave a polite smile to the kid at the counter.

Cas surveyed the menu. “I’ll have a strawberry shake?”

“Great,” the guy said, devoid of interest. “Coming right up.”

“Deanna, this is not what I’d call a nutritious meal,” Cas said, her gaze darting around the place. Her eyes landed on a picture of a woman with curled blonde hair and a red-lipsticked smile squinting at the camera. She wondered if she’d chosen the plunging neckline she was photographed in.

“Screw nutrition. I’ll eat what I want,” Deanna said. “Apparently, I’m on vacation.”

Cas nodded absently, fascinated by the attempts being made to recreate a past era of human history.

The kid arrived with their orders a few minutes later. “Chocolate malt and fries, and here’s your strawberry shake.”

He stood there as if he was waiting for an invitation to sit down. “Okay, buzz off, kiddo,” Deanna said at last, noticing how he was trying to subtly stare at Cas’s chest. “She’s a little old for you.”  
  


The kid went pale and fled. “Understatement,” Cas said, experimentally shoving a spoon into her shake.

“You said it.” Deanna dipped a fry into her malt.

“Hold on,” Cas said as Deanna held the fry to her lips. “Sam asked me to take a few pictures.” She produced the camera from one of her many pockets.

“Can you hurry?” Deanna asked as the malt began to drip from her fry. “We’re here to eat.”

“Just a second —” the flash went off. “Oops.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I did that correctly.” Castiel squinted at the camera.

“Lemme see,” Deanna said, shoving the fry into her mouth and snatching the camera. “Oh,” she said.

The picture had captured her with half a smile, the harsh fluorescent lights sparking a mischievous glint in her eyes. She looked — not beautiful, not quite. But pretty, maybe. She hadn’t been expecting _pretty_. “You got your picture all right,” she said quickly, handing the camera back.

Castiel stowed the camera away again. “Deanna, I wanted to apologize to you.” Cas cringed inwardly at how abrupt she sounded. “For what happened in Lucifer’s Crypts.”

“Not your fault. You said Naomi —”

“I should have fought her harder. That is ‘on me,’ and no one else.” She sampled the shake. It was pleasant, she supposed, though she didn’t feel she understood Deanna’s obsession with flavor. Perhaps humanity perceived it differently.

“No, Cas, it’s fine. I don’t want to talk about it.” Deanna’s smile had vanished entirely.

“I hurt you.” Cas reached out and gripped Deanna’s wrists. Deanna smiled tightly and tried to tug her hands away. “Listen to me. I hurt you and then I left you without explaining anything. I wasn’t lying when I said I had to conceal the angel tablet, that was true, but I… I shouldn’t have abandoned you. You needed me and I failed you.”

“I needed you before that, Cas! I needed you when you walked out on me in Purgatory, and I needed you when Sammy and me were supposed to start the frigging Trials! I needed you there with me when Sam started the Trials, and I needed you there when Sam said she didn’t think she’d get out of the Trials in one piece.”

“ _I wish I could have been there!”_ Cas snapped. “I wish I never left Purgatory because then none of this would have happened! Do you have _any idea_ what she did to me?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know, Cas? You’re here, you’re gone, you’re back again, and you never tell me what’s going on!” Deanna forgot about the kid at the counter, forgot about lunch and relaxing. “So yeah, Cas, fill me in. What the _hell_ happened to you?”  
  


“She _made me kill you!”_ Cas shouted, standing up and pushing her chair back. The lights in the diner flickered and the jukebox started to crackle with static. “She pulled me into Heaven and she made me kill you, over and over again until I didn’t hesitate. She wanted me to be loyal to her so she forced me to kill you so I wouldn’t try to save you.”

The diner was deathly silent. Deanna was still in her seat, her freckles standing out sharply against her pale face. Shock was written all over her wide eyes and open mouth. Behind her, Castiel heard a small squeak of terror as the boy behind the counter made his presence known again.

Deanna thought quickly. “Don’t say anything and we’ll tip fifty percent,” she called.

“Okay,” his small voice responded.

Slowly Cas sat back down. “I shouldn’t have shouted.”

“Shut the hell up, Cas. You have every— You don’t need to… Don’t apologize to me. Not you, not now. You didn’t have a choice.”  
  


“There’s always a choice,” Castiel said quietly. “You taught me that.”

“Well, I was wrong!” Deanna retorted. “You don’t need to ask for my forgiveness, _God,_ I should be begging for you to forgive _me._ ”

“I killed you hundreds of times,” Cas said, feeling as though her shoulders were heavier with guilt after each word. “At first she had to hold her hand on mine just to make me go through with it. It… got easier.”

Deanna couldn’t even speak.

“By the end I think I just wanted it to stop. And even when she told me to kill you in the crypt —”

“She told you to kill me there?” Deanna couldn’t stop herself.

“ — but I couldn’t do it.”

Deanna let out a long breath. “Holy crap.” She reached out for Cas’s hand and gripped it tightly. “Hey. Don’t worry about it. Don’t,” she repeated when Cas started to argue.

They finished their food in utter silence, the kid behind the counter pointedly refusing to look their way. When they finished, Deanna considered the bill and laid down a fifty on top of the twenty for the food. “Kid deserves it,” she muttered to Cas as the doors swung closed behind them.

They drove until about six, stopping a few miles outside of Ashland at a roadside motel. The place was scruffy, but someone had obviously tried to class it up for the fair, which appeared to be Ashland’s sole claim to fame. “Sorry, ladies,” the woman at the counter said when Deanna requested a double room. “Only got singles left.”

“Great,” Deanna said, about to turn around and walk out.

Cas leaned forward to remind Deanna, “I don’t need a bed. I don’t sleep.”

Deanna sighed. “One single room.”

She tossed her duffel on the bed with a sigh.

“Are your ribs hurting you?” Cas asked. The swelling on Deanna’s face had gone down tremendously, leaving only a few colorful bruises, but the cracked rib was the greater concern.

“I’m fine, Cas, give it a rest.”

“I could attempt to heal you,” she suggested.

“And slow down your own recovery? Just let me heal naturally. It’s fine.” Deanna sprawled herself across the bed, inhaling the scent of cigarette smoke in the sheets. “I’m gonna order a pizza.”

“We still have half a bag of the worms left,” Cas said. She hadn’t quite understood their appeal any more than she did the strawberry shake, but Deanna seemed to like them.

“Then I’ll stick them on the pizza. You want any?” Deanna started dialing a pizza delivery service recommended by a brochure on the bedside table.

“I’ll pass.” Castiel settled into a chair and sat quietly.

“Then I’m getting a small, with everything on it.” When she was finished, she glanced over at Cas. “You know you don’t have to wear that coat all the time, right? It’s allowed.”

Cas smiled. “I like it.”

Deanna rolled over and started to flip through channels on the black and white TV. It was a welcome distraction from the flurry of thoughts plaguing her since the Sunset Diner.

After more than ten minutes of channel surfing and coming up with zilch, Deanna finally broke and asked the first question that had been on her mind. “So what are you gonna do now? You made it pretty obvious Heaven ain’t gonna take you back.”

“Ever since I broke free of Naomi I’ve been running. To keep the angel tablet safe, and to keep you safe. If she thought you would know where I am, I’m sure she would make a greater effort to search for you.”

“So, what, you’re just gonna run forever? Doesn’t sound like any way to live.” Deanna shut the TV off.

“I don’t see another option, Deanna,” Cas said, but it was a lie. She could clearly see another option. The only option that mattered. But Deanna would never agree to it. And for good reason. Cas’s presence in the bunker would bring nothing but danger.

“Just tell me,” Deanna pressed, not believing her for a second. “If you weren’t running, what would you do?”

Castiel felt ambushed. She couldn’t answer, for all the words she wanted to say.

A knock at the door saved her. “Pizza for a… Stevie Nicks?”

“That’s me!” Deanna shouted through the door. “Coming!”

By the time the delivery guy was gone, Deanna seemed to have forgotten their conversation. Then she kept talking, and Castiel knew she wasn’t so lucky.

“So what, then? Jenny Novak just gonna be stuck in her own skin forever while you run from Heaven?” Deanna asked, picking up a piece of pizza.

“Jenny is gone,” Castiel answered, surprised by this new tactic. “When Raphael killed me, I was done. God brought me back, and Jenny was sent to Heaven.” She’d once considered visiting her, to apologize for the hurt she’d caused. But then Raphael had pushed her into war, and she rarely returned to Heaven after that.

“Got it. Nobody home but you.” Deanna sat up. “Look, Cas…”

“Yes?”

Deanna sighed. “Nothing.” This changed everything. She’d always stopped herself before, when she wanted to consider… _Cas._ Because she wasn’t looking at _Cas,_ she was looking at a virtual stranger’s body that _held_ Cas. But for years that wasn’t even true.

This opened a door Deanna had always assumed would stay locked.

After Deanna finished her pizza (in spite of Cas’s insistence that it was not good for her health), she finally resigned herself to watching a Lifetime movie and groaning at all the cheesy parts. The bland dialogue put her to sleep.

A blinding sunrise roused her the next morning. Admittedly, the flushing pink and tangerine that spangled the clear sky was pretty, but Deanna still flipped off the sun dazedly from her bed. Five-thirty a.m. was too flipping early.

“Cas?” she murmured, starting to roll over. She halted. _What the hell?_ Cas was lying next to her, burrowed under the sheets. “You awake?”

No response. “So much for ‘I don’t sleep,’ huh?”

Deanna gazed at her, sitting up. Cas’s chest rose and fell rhythmically, strangely relaxed. Her features were striking, her slightly tanned skin smooth. Even while she slept she seemed filled with some ethereal quality.

Stealthily Deanna slipped out of bed and grabbed her phone, then snapped a picture. “Little Angel,” she wrote, and she sent the image to Sam. She glanced at it again, and her heart skipped a beat. Around Cas’s head was a flare of light like the ring around the moon in an eclipse. A freaking _halo._

After a moment, she shook Cas awake. “You okay?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be okay?” Cas blinked, confused.

Deanna stared at her. “Angels don’t sleep.”

“Oh, that.” Cas stretched and stood up.

“ _Oh, that,”_ Deanna mimicked. “Yes, that. You sure your grace is getting better?” She paced around the bed.

“I — grossly underestimated the effect sealing that creature in its own universe would have on my grace,” Cas admitted. “And of course, I am not yet recovered. Allowing my vessel to perform natural human functions allows me to conserve what grace I have restored. The body is working to maintain itself without my interference.” She’d redirected her grace last night. She hadn’t realized her vessel’s response would be so sudden.

“So you should be eating,” Deanna said. “That’s my takeaway. Great, well, apparently the motel has a complimentary continental breakfast, so let’s go.”

Deanna stacked her plate and Cas’s high with food. “It’s free,” she reminded Cas. “With what they charge a night, I’m not skimping and neither are you.”

Deanna smiled as Cas tried the bacon and immediately took more. “Addictive, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It doesn’t taste so… small,” Castiel tried to describe it. “The shake, the sour worms, they tasted smaller.”

“You know what, I’m not even gonna try to understand what the hell you’re talking about.” Deanna shoved the last bite of a pancake in her mouth and chased it with thin, watery coffee. “I’m gonna head back to the room, take a shower. You keep eating until your ‘natural human functions’ tell you to stop.”

When Deanna walked out of the shower, dressed in cutoff jeans and a white tank top, she immediately covered her face with her hands. “Cas?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Yes?”

“Put a shirt on?” she suggested. “Not that I mind, but usually that’s a third-date kind of thing.”

“You change in front of Sam,” Cas said, confused.

“That’s _Sam._ She’s not gonna ogle me,” Deanna tried to explain. She still had her eyes covered, though that wasn’t blocking out the image of Cas in nothing but a bra and dress pants holding up her Metallica shirt like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Who would be ‘ogling’ me?” Cas pointed out.

 _Damn it,_ why’d she have to bring along the angel? Deanna stumbled over her next words. “I, that’s not what I mean. Sam and I are related. It’s _weird_ when you’re not related.”

“You don’t need to keep covering your eyes, Deanna. I’m clothed.” Slowly Deanna opened her eyes. Sure enough, there was Cas, her trench coat and jacket heaped on the floor. “I was just wondering if you would object to sharing that shirt.”

Trying not to overthink it, Deanna asked, “Why?”

“I feel I may be overdressed for this ‘fair and beer festival’ event. If I remember correctly, drinking alcohol is a social event. My usual attire might attract attention.” Cas reached for her suit jacket.

Deanna tried not to think about how Cas would probably attract attention no matter what she was wearing. “Well, if you wanted to change, all you had to do was ask.” She pulled a pair of jeans out of her duffel bag. As an afterthought, she also grabbed the extra pair of biker boots she had stowed away there. Cas didn’t want to traipse around all day in jeans and high heels, especially if she’d be drinking.

“Here,” she said, tossing the jeans and shoes to Cas. “Go in the bathroom and try these on. You can wear the shirt, too. There’re a couple holes in it, but as long as you don’t mind…”

“Thank you, Deanna,” Cas said sincerely. She vanished into the bathroom.

“Wait!” Deanna said. “Take this, too.” She had several ponytail bands in her bag as well, extras for when Sam misplaced hers. “Do something with your hair.”

Cas emerged a few minutes later, her hair up in a clumsy attempt at a messy bun and her tax-accountant look traded in for casual Friday clothes. The shirt was a little big, slipping over one shoulder, but the jeans fit and the boots looked fine.

“Too bad about that whole celibacy thing,” she said, eyeing the way the shirt draped over Cas’s… chest. “With that on, you’re gonna have so many guys hitting on you, your head’ll spin.”

“What are you talking about?” Castiel frowned, wondering if this was some sort of human custom she hadn’t heard of.  
  


“You know, the whole ‘no sex ‘til marriage’ thing. You told me you never did anything with anyone before.” Deanna realized that she was hurtling into dangerous territory, but she couldn’t seem to stop her mouth from moving. “Just thought you guys weren’t allowed, like a monk or something.”

Castiel shook her head. “There’s no rule against sex, Deanna. Procreation between an angel and a human is strictly forbidden, but intercourse is....” She looked away. “Different.”

Deanna nodded dizzily. “Oh.” _Say something else, stupid!_ “Okay.” _Nice. Eloquent._

The town was packed for the fair, the narrow streets crammed with people as far as Deanna could tell. Guys and girls were sipping samples as they meandered along the sidewalk.

“Hey, baby,” a guy said as Deanna and Cas got out of the Impala. “How are you doing?”

“Buzz off, scumbag,” Deanna snapped.

“Wasn’t talking to you, bitch,” the guy said. “Hey, pretty lady, come on. Smile or something.” He sidled up to Cas and swept his eyes up her body.

Castiel turned to him and stared coolly. “I suggest you back off.”

The man went white and backed away. “Jesus, girl, shut that glare off before someone gets hurt.”

“I should have smote him,” Castiel muttered. “He’s only going to bother some other woman now.”

“He’s drunk,” Deanna said. “And a hundred pounds soaking wet, by the looks of him. There’re cops keeping an eye out for sleazebags like him.”

They barely made it another half a block before another guy was on Cas, telling her she was pretty and asking did she want to ditch her friend there and drink with him instead? By the time they reached the main road, Cas had brushed off half a dozen men and pried off a couple more.

“I’d rather just stay with you,” she murmured to Deanna after the last one shuffled off to find his buddies.

Deanna laughed nervously. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Once they got to the main road, though, the constant flirtations died off. People were so jam-packed there, grinding to the country music some band was blasting, that they’d be hard-pressed to even see Cas in the mess.

They browsed for hours, sampling a variety of beers and buying several different kinds to enjoy as they walked and listened to the music. Deanna suggested they detour through the carnival games set up for the drunk masses and their aggrieved, all-too-sober children, but that resulted in Castiel getting caught up in some sort of ring toss, as she won prize after prize for perfect scores.

At last the girl at the ring toss told her to keep walking and keep the money she was offering to continue, but as Cas lugged a sock monkey on her shoulders and several bags of assorted candy in hand, she spotted another game and laid down money to pop paint-filled balloons with darts.

Sure enough, she played a round and popped all the highest-scoring spots, winning a massive plush beer bottle half her height. “We are not keeping that,” Deanna said immediately.

Cas shrugged and gave it to a little girl who was enviously watching her older, taller brother give the game a try.

“I’m going to put these things in the car,” Castiel shouted over the many voices around them.

“Okay,” Deanna yelled back. As she watched her friend walk away, all she could think was _God_ , Cas was something else.

After stowing her prizes safely in the trunk with the shotguns and rock salt, Cas wandered back through the throng, retracing her steps until she reached the place where she’d left Deanna. She was gone.

“Dammit, Deanna,” she muttered.

She searched through the crowd methodically, wondering where Deanna could have gotten to. Her mind was plagued by the dizziness associated with intoxication, making it much harder to focus on finding her. They’d drunk enough in the last four or so hours that it was beginning to impair her ability to walk, which was no joy for Castiel. At last she gave up and considered how much grace she had replenished.

Fortunately, she had enough that she could search the town for Deanna with no strain on her current power level. Castiel glanced around to be sure no one was watching before reminding herself that most people here were imbibing alcohol, and few people would believe them if they claimed to see a woman vanish into thin air.

She found Deanna at the edge of the crowd by the band. She landed a few yards away in an attempt to keep from surprising her.

When Castiel saw her, she realized she need not have bothered.

Deanna was up on a barstool, straddling a stranger’s lap. His hands were on her waist and in her hair. Deanna obviously wasn’t too worried about Castiel, considering her lips were on this stranger’s and she was kissing him like he was the only other person in the world.

Castiel felt suddenly as though her legs had vanished from her vessel, her heart pounding. She wished she could lie to herself and claim the ache in her chest was a side effect of the alcohol. She shuddered, knowing that her breath was knocked out of her for very human, very mortal reasons.

 _Intercourse is… different._ Of course, it _was,_ technically. Procreation was, and attachment… becoming attached to a human in any capacity was forbidden, but this would be an unforgivable transgression in the eyes of Heaven. Having feelings at all was anathema enough, but _this…_

Castiel pulled at Deanna’s sleeve. “Deanna —”

“What the hell?” Deanna said as she separated herself from the man’s face. Castiel observed distantly that he was ruggedly attractive, with wide blue eyes and windswept, dark hair. “It’s you,” Deanna said, her words clear and unmarred by drink. “Cas, go screw yourself. I’m busy.”

Castiel felt cold all over. Cold had never concerned her, angels didn’t have any concern for any kind of weather. And with the sun overhead she should have been warm, if anything.

She couldn’t breathe. Slowly she took a step back, stumbling off the sidewalk and into the street.

The Impala supplied her with welcome silence. Castiel preferred it to the crowd outside, which was somehow still going strong in spite of what she’d just seen. She didn’t really want to enjoy any more liquor and ‘lose her inhibitions.’

Inhibitions were about all she had left of herself at this point.

She watched the sky, her face stony and blank, as the sun slowly drifted downward and finally met the horizon. Little colored lights strung from the street lamps came on as the sky grew darker, until at last the crowd dispersed. Castiel tried not to wonder what Deanna was doing with that man now that she was waiting here.

Castiel reminded herself that there were reasons angels were not allowed to feel. It impaired their ability to fight, to function. And she knew she was the living proof.

Maybe Deanna had too much of an influence over her. Castiel needed a heart of ice, cold and indifferent, just to keep her feelings from overwhelming her. Perhaps Naomi, and Hester, and all the other angels were right.

In the dark, trying to think of nothing, Castiel unsheathed her angel blade when she heard a thump at the door of the Impala. A moment later, she relaxed; not by much, but enough to stow her weapon.

Deanna fumbled with the door awkwardly, finally yanking it open. She slid into the car, regretting the last twelve or so beers.

She didn’t speak as she attempted to put the key in the ignition, but it was dark and her vision was blurry and she couldn’t find where the key was supposed to go.

“Deanna?” Cas said.

Deanna jumped so high she hit her head on the roof of the car. “Son of a _bitch!_ What the hell?”

Cas felt her weak attempt at an ice-cold heart melting already at her voice. She smiled in dark amusement.

“Cas?” Deanna blinked into the darkness of the car and made out Cas’s exquisitely carved features in the faint moonlight that peeked through the heavy clouds overhead. “Cas, ‘m really sorry,” she mumbled, still stubbornly persevering in her quest to start the Impala. “Shouldn’t have… just really sorry, ‘kay?”

“What are you…” Cas began, but then she realized that if Deanna started the car she would then try to drive it in her condition. Outside, the streets were almost bare. They were only two or three miles away from where they’d parked; Cas would rather the two of them walk back to the motel than have Deanna attempt to drive. She took the keys from Deanna’s hand and pocketed them.

Deanna didn’t notice. “I’m sorry, Cas,”she repeated. “I’m sorry, I’m _so damn sorry,_ okay?”

“Why would you be sorry?” Cas asked, trying to suppress the hesitant hope she felt at Deanna’s words.

“Kissed that guy.” Deanna waved her hand around wildly, trying to explain something she couldn’t articulate.

“You have a right to kiss whoever you’d like. Sam wouldn’t have minded, why —” She hesitated. “Why would I?”

“Shoulda been kissing _you,”_ Deanna mumbled, and then she was leaning much too close for this to be platonic and her beautiful green eyes were wide and interested and her lips were parted the way humans found attractive and Castiel was very much regretting allowing the human body’s natural functions to take control.

Deanna’s lips were an inch from hers when Castiel put up her hands and gently pushed Deanna away. “Don’t,” she muttered. “You’re drunk. You wouldn’t let it mean anything later.”

Deanna shook her head insistently, trying to puzzle out how to explain herself, but the motion was too much for her. She barely got the door open and her head out of the car before her stomach heaved and she vomited in the street.

Castiel carried Deanna back to the motel, promising that they’d go back for the car in the morning. When Deanna woke up, it was to complete silence, aside from the pounding in her head. Castiel was seated across the room, eyes closed meditatively. “Cas?” she said.

“I’ve regained enough grace to finish healing your ribs,” Castiel said, sounding coolly neutral and detached. “But you should expect no help with your headache.”

“Yeah, no, that’s fair,” Deanna admitted, a little resentful nonetheless. “Look, Cas, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t waste your time,” Cas said tonelessly. “You are sorry. For kissing a man who you had every right to kiss.” She shook her head. “Deanna, I wouldn’t expect you to put your personality aside just for my comfort.”

“Cas, you don’t —” Deanna stood up and winced as her headache pounded full-force. “After you saw me, I… I ditched the guy. I got so _smashed_ , after. ‘Cause I didn’t mean for… that.”

Castiel refused to move or even meet Deanna’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

Deanna took a few painstaking steps forward. “The hell it doesn’t, Cas! I hurt you, and that was the last thing I wanted to do! I was stupid and I wanted, I don’t know what I wanted. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

Cas finally met her eyes. “That’s not…” She hadn’t expected an apology, not like this. She could tell that Deanna wasn’t faking, wasn’t just trying to ease her own conscience. But Deanna wouldn’t believe her if she simply forgave her.

She raised her hands over Deanna’s head in a sarcastic benediction. “I absolve you of your guilt. You can stop apologizing.” She put a smile on her face that was only half a lie.

Deanna shook her head. “I can’t believe you.” She dropped down on the bed. “You wanna stick around for day two or head back to the bunker?”

Castiel shrugged. “Whatever you’d prefer.”

“I think we should stay. Try to put yesterday behind us, you know?” _All of it._ Deanna just wanted to forget every stupid decision she made yesterday, from the guy, to the excessive booze, to trying to… when Cas couldn’t even feel things that way.

Sunday was much more enjoyable than Saturday had been, in the long run. The country music gave way to some sort of alternative folk genre, and the crowds were smaller, the day slightly cooler with a breeze keeping the temperature down.

Castiel insisted on playing a few of the carnival games again; she won about seven bottles of soda and a small stuffed zombie toy on a keychain, which she gave to Deanna. Afterward, they stopped at a few food tents — Castiel particularly enjoyed the cheese curds, though Deanna loved the massive burger she got, and Cas learned that cotton candy was not the fabric-based treat she’d been expecting.

Of course, for Deanna the craft beers were the highlight, and she bought bottles of the more interesting types to bring home for Sam to try.

Cas and Deanna left the next morning at four a.m., getting out of there so they could be back at the bunker by five that afternoon. The drive was much less uncomfortable than the one on the way up to Ashland, Deanna had to admit. In spite of… everything else, the air between them felt relaxed, like all the tension they’d had just melted away.

“We’re home, Sammy!” Deanna shouted as she swept through the door, lugging her duffel behind her.

Sam looked up from her work. “Hey, great timing! I just finished getting all the English-language files sorted.”

“Thank God,” Deanna said, grinning. “So glad I didn’t stick around for that.” The door clanged shut behind Cas as Deanna started down the stairs. “Hey, Cas!” she added. “You wanna pick out a room or something? We’ve got plenty of space down here.”  
  


Cas didn’t respond until they were both at the bottom of the stairs. “I can’t, Deanna. I have to protect the angel tablet. I’ve spent too much time in your company already. Surely Naomi has realized that I might have taken refuge with you.”  
  


“We’re warded against angels,” Sam pointed out.

“But this bunker is not,” Cas retorted. “The Men of Letters would never have expected angels would walk the Earth again, and this place is not protected. If Naomi knows of its existence, she may have the presence of mind to _check_ it. If that happens, I cannot be here. I cannot allow her to possess the tablet.”

Sam nodded. As much as she didn’t like it, it made sense. She glanced over at Deanna, trying to get a read on her opinion.

Of course Cas was leaving again. That was what she was good at, wasn’t it? Deanna couldn’t believe that even after their weekend, after everything, that Cas was going to walk out on her, on them, again.

“At least stay the night,” she blurted out without thinking. “We can put on a movie or something. Hell, we can have a slumber party, tell ghost stories, gossip about all the cute boys,” she added flippantly, trying to sound a little less desperate.

Cas considered it. Surely a few more hours wouldn’t cause the end of the world. And if she were honest, she _wanted_ to stay. “I’ll stay.”

Deanna almost dropped her duffel. She hadn’t been expecting that. “O-okay,” she said. “Sammy, you wanna run out and pick up some food? You know, chips, pizza, the works.”

“You’re not kidding,” Sam said, rolling her eyes. “Fine, I’ll run and get supplies. You want party hats too, Miss Sunshine?” She started up the stairs, grabbing her purse off a hook on the wall.

“Why the hell not,” Deanna said, smiling wickedly. “Hey!” she shouted as Sam reached for the door. “Get some pie, too, okay?”

“ _Okay,”_ Sam said, and was gone.

Deanna turned to Cas, who had picked up some strange statuette from a shelf and was examining it intently. “All right, while she’s gone, I’m gonna go through her room and see if I can find any DVDs in there. You, you can just… explore, a little bit. Get familiarized with the place.”

Cas nodded and continued to inspect the statuette.

Sam’s door was ajar, her bland white sheets rumpled. “Come on, Sammy. You have a house now, act like it,” Deanna said to the empty room. It was silly; the walls were bare, the room as dull as a brick.

She tried the dresser but only found a few pairs of pants and a couple shirts stowed away there. Sam’s DVDs weren’t under the bed or in her bag, either. “I know you have some,” Deanna murmured.

Finally she found a stack of them on the top shelf in the closet, underneath a large, heavy, leather-bound book.

Deanna lifted the book down so she could get at the DVDs, but once she had it in her hands, she forgot about the movies entirely.

Pasted to the front cover of the book was a picture of Mom. Deanna didn’t even know how Sam would have gotten her hands on a picture like that. It was obviously candid, their mom’s face scrunched up in a grin. The picture cut out below her shoulders, but she looked like she was holding something. Like a baby.

Deanna opened the book up. Taped on the inside cover were two movie tickets for _Tommy Boy_. “Sammy, what…” She flipped to the next page and saw a picture of a motel room, wallpapered in teal and orange. _“Dee and me at Lake Tahoe,”_ Deanna read from another picture’s caption, featuring her standing at a hot dog stand on a pier as Sam smiled into the camera, her toothy grin blocking half the frame. She flipped forward a few pages.

 _“Aunt Bobby and new puppy Rumsfeld. 2000.”_ A picture of Bobby, trucker’s cap and all, with a massive black dog Deanna would never have called puppy if she hadn’t seen it herself. Under that was a picture of Sam with a backpack, the caption reading _First day of college._ She turned the page.

_“Jason Moore. Jan. 24, 1984- Nov. 2, 2005.”_

Jason smiled from the faded and tear-spotted photograph, his fluffy blond hair catching light and reflecting it again. Deanna wondered how long Sam had been hiding this book.

She explored the book carefully. There was a picture of Deanna drooling as they stopped for gas during a long trek. Here was a blurry photo of a wild crowd and a stage — _Ozzy Osbourne!_ the caption cheered. Ellen, Jo, and Ash sipping beer at the Roadhouse. A sneaky shot of Bruno Talbot in one of his rare moments of cooperativity. A few spaces where pictures had obviously been removed; the captions were scribbled out, but Deanna made out the name _Ruby._

There were pictures from the days of the Apocalypse in spite of everything. One picture of Sam with Deanna, Cas, and Bobby just before they went to Detroit. The only thing written there was _Goodbye._

Nothing from when Sam was soulless, but Deanna chuckled when she saw a picture of a TV set and a Castiel-copy that was grinning like a Cheshire cat — very un-Cas-like. There were pictures of strange cases, maps, yellowed diner menus, even a few fake ID’s they’d long since stopped using were taped to some pages. But after Cas broke Sam’s wall, the pictures had skipped a year and a half, to _Andrew and Riot, July 2012._ Only a few new pictures had appeared since then, some of Kevin and others of Garth, Charlie and the LARPing weekend, Cas — and Deanna, caught in various moods.

There were still many blank pages to fill, but the last picture in the book was the one Deanna had sent to Sam of Cas, with her strange halo. _Little Angel,_ Sam wrote beneath it.

Deanna heard the echo of the door slamming shut and closed the book sharply, then stuffed it back into the closet. She grabbed a movie at random and bolted out of there.

“Sorry, they didn’t have any pie,” Sam said when Deanna walked into the war room. “I got cake instead, hope you don’t mind.”

Deanna started to protest, but she forgot what she was going to say when Cas joined them. “Hey, Cas,” she said instead. “You ready for a slumber party?”

“Deanna, you know I don’t sleep.”

“Give me a break just this once.”

“You two shut up and start putting the food away, there’s ice cream in one of these bags and it’ll melt if we leave it out.”  
  


“Come on, Sammy —”

“Don’t call me Sa— You know what, never mind, I won’t make you help. But that means I get to eat all the popcorn by myself.”

“In your dreams,” Deanna snapped.

“Try me,” Sam shot back.

Deanna looked at her, then at the bags of groceries. In a flash she plucked the popcorn out of a bag and took off running with Sam in hot pursuit. Cas watched them disappear down a hallway, then sat down at the table and browsed through Sam’s purchases.

I really shouldn’t stay, she thought again. Not with Naomi looking for the angel tablet. She glanced down at her stomach and wondered how safe it could be there. But if it had anything to do with breaking free of her control, Castiel was not letting go of it.

She should run, now. Leave the bunker and fly far, far away. The Winchesters would understand.

“Cas!” Deanna panted as she ran back in. “Come on, we’re watching _Pet Sematery._ I’ll give you first dibs on snacks if you put the food away!”

Castiel smiled. One night in the bunker wouldn’t hurt.


End file.
